


The Woodlice Corner

by ERNest



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: Shortly after leaving the Convent of Petit-Picpus, Cosette encounters a group of children.





	The Woodlice Corner

   Cosette steps into the sunlight outside the convent for the first time in nearly a decade. She has been taught caution of the world, but even then her smile outshines the sun as far as her papa is concerned. They have a house waiting for them in the city, and another if it’s not to her liking or if they have to get out in a hurry. For now she wants to walk a little while before they get into a carriage, and Jean Valjean, current alias Ultime Fauchelevent would indulge her in anything.

     Even he has to admit that it’s a different banlieu from when they were both running scared without any kind of a map. It’s a beautifully amphibious area, not quite Paris, not quite suburb: therefore a little of both. And like any unique environment its strange inhabitants have adapted to it. Cosette sees a group of children, mostly boys, gathered around something she can’t see. The oldest is not much younger than herself, but they are all much thinner than they should be, so it’s hard to guess at anyone’s true age. She looks at her papa with pleading eyes, but he must mistake her pity for fear because he tries to hurry her away.

     At the commotion the boys finally look up and through the gaps between them Cosette sees they’ve overturned a rock to examine the bugs beneath it. She forgets herself and all her training to be a young lady, and in that moment she only remembers hours spent in the refectory and the nations that arose there — she was a woodlouse, herself. They weren’t allowed to speak but there were ways around that, of course. So she lifts her skirt to crouch in the dirt among the motley crew and immediately starts asking questions about what they’ve found. Once she volunteers enough information of her own to demonstrate a genuine interest, the gamins open up to her, as much as they can with _anyone_ who’s not one of them. She can tell she’s earned much more respect in this odd little society than she would have with the change purse she was considering before.

     Cosette is too absorbed in a discussion about taxonomy to see the look on the old man’s face, or maybe she’d get up sooner. He watches her with a smile that wants to weep. He can’t protect her from interacting with the world now that they have rejoined it, and he can’t protect his heart from not being her whole world anymore. To keep her from thinking her own thoughts would be to lose her even faster than encouraging her, and it all starts in this boulevard next to a straggling hedge. Finally he sighs and calls her name, and she stands to face him, ready to continue walking into a new adventure.

     If she accidentally leaves some coins behind in the dust to be discovered later, who’s to say if she will even miss them?


End file.
